Wooden panel with a
musician

From Kerala, southern
India18th century AD

A musician to the gods

Carved in high-relief on a wooden panel a man
stands with an oboe
(nageswaram) in one
hand. He holds his right hand above his shoulder, as if reaching
for something in the tree above him. Alongside the images of
deities on Hindu temples are subsidiary figures who entertain and
accompany the gods, including dancers and musicians such as this
one and the stone bracket figure of a female drummer from a Hoysala
temple.

Wood is widely used
in the temple arts of southern India. However, in the hot and humid
climate of the subcontinent, wood does not survive long and
consequently there are few surviving examples of wooden sculptures
from before the seventeenth or eighteenth century. This panel has
short pegs at the top and bottom that indicate that it was attached
to a larger structure perhaps in a building. Kerala is one of the
few areas of the subcontinent (the northwestern Himalayas are
another example) where wood is used structurally for temple
buildings. In Kerala, as elsewhere, wood is used to make chariots
(rathas) and vehicles
(vahanas) for carrying
the gods in festival processions.